


The melancholy in undoing

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Identity Issues, M/M, Madeleine Era, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-10 22:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A saved man, Jean Valjean resolves to make better his life and the lives of those in Montreuil-sur-mer, though never could he have fathomed the difficulties of such an endeavor. Never could he have predicted the result.





	The melancholy in undoing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytherintbh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherintbh/gifts).



> So not once have I ever started a multi-chap that I’ve finished. Lads, I want to change that. I’m fed up with myself and my complacency with my mediocrity as a ‘writer’, and I want to complete something. Plus, this story has been mulling around my brain bits for months on end. I love it so much and I want to see it come to fruition. I’m gonna do it.
> 
> (And, as always, your feedback fuels my life essence :>)

Jean Valjean’s arrival in Montreuil-sur-mer is blessedly unheeded, and, shrouded in the frigid pitch of night sans moon or star to cast hollows on his tired face, he is as similarly obscured from the town as it is him. Grateful for the cover this affords, he walks the streets with a less guarded stride, though still taking care not to jostle the knapsack slung across his back, heavy as it is with the silver candlesticks and banknotes he traded the rest of the Bishop’s offerings for. The coin of Petit Gervais sits leaden in his pocket, unperturbed in the weeks of his travels and, when exhaustion threatens, the stark reminder he needs that he must continue, find a place to nourish his redemption, and make reparations as he is able.

Thus, he has come to the threshold of this town, aching spiritually as he does physically, for the aftershocks of his moral catastrophe have yet to quell though it has been weeks since his encounter and presence in Digne. He does not know what he hopes to find in this new town, or how to begin making amends with the mark of the bagne on his skin and papers. Those, too, burn his fingers every time he places his hand in his pocket, and so he has stopped doing so altogether. As a result, the already rough skin of his palms has grown chafed and bloodied with December’s relentless bite, but aside from this, he does not begrudge the weather. It has chased everyone indoors, even the harlots and derelicts, granting him reprieve from reproach, the town his to explore until daylight breaks. He has until then to fabricate a new man presentable enough to pass before the local authority, but, until then, he can roam under the pretense of a free man.

In his pocket, coin and parchment anchor him to a past he can never escape.

-

Keeping to the shadowed environs, he discovers the town is neither small nor sprawling, and then debates whether he should attempt one of the local inns. The idea is discarded with necessary haste; no good will come of asking where he will be plied for information. Still a stray mutt cowering at the heels of society, it will be some time before he can consider himself a man of equal standing - if such a thing will ever be possible. His history is woeful, his transgressions egregious, and only his promise to the Bishop steadies his resolve. To seek comfort in other assurances, false ones, will do more detriment than he has already inflicted on himself. He must shoulder his burdens with good intent or else be crushed wholly beneath their weight. That is his sole mission henceforth.

Of course, he cannot hope to sublimate before God if he freezes stiff tonight, and the temperature threatens just that unless he finds shelter. Tugging the frayed collar of his grey coat tighter about his neck, he lopes through the maze of streets in search of somewhere to hunker down and think until morning, but every alley he turns down funnels the stinging wind into a riotous, buffeting gale, and there are less than few buildings in complete shambles that do not appear infested already with prostitutes and the drunken homeless. Perhaps that is the best he will ever amount to now, but a stubborn, angry part of him refuses to even entertain the suggestion. He has been renewed to life. He will not again waste it.

Thus he resigns himself to an evening of tortuous cold and takes to wary, directionless roving. It is a penance, he tells himself, repeats it like a mantra. It helps him ignore the cold. It will pass the time.

In fact, he does not even know what time it is. These past weeks, he has relied on the stars to guide his passage, traveling only at night under Polaris’s sentinel gaze. He could intuit at least ten hours had passed between sunset and sunrise, tracking the days as such, but specificity eluded him. In the bagne, time was more concrete, it was all he had. The guards took their shifts, the sun took leisure in summer, the rain took warmth in winter. The prison, itself, took its toll, each year that was added to his sentence a death knell chiming him closer to a life without release, and now that he has it, it feels as though there is none left.

He resolves to venture closer to the center of town, to find a clocktower so he might discover how much freedom he has left this brittle night, before he must assume his new self in this new town, or be exposed and returned to Toulon where he will always know his time and just how infinite it is.

-

Following the few lamps the wind has not managed to snuff out, he trudges down many a strange street, memorizing their twists and dead ends to the best of his ability in the event he must make a swift escape. He tries not to fixate on this very real, very likely possibility, and tightens his arms about himself. He is so terribly cold.

At length, the lamps become more numerous, and he wonders if perhaps the lighters simply neglect all but here, leaving the poor to grope in the darkness while the affluent politely forget their privileges. Indeed, as he approaches what he approximates to be the center of town, a bright glow shows over the tops of buildings and houses along with the carrying call of loud voices, and he wonders if there is a celebration of sorts happening. It is not yet Christmas, which is the only reason he can supply that there might be a gathering, and his curiosity urges him to investigate. As he approaches, however, it becomes apparent this is no result of merriment, and his adrenaline immediately spikes at the first scent of smoke.

Not even pausing to weight the consequences, he takes off running in the direction of the fire, gaze latched to the roofs of the houses guiding him in its direction. In two minute’s time, he emerges in front of what he can only assume is the Mairie, engulfed in wicked, climbing flames, surrounded by a woefully under-prepared brigade pumping streams of water into the blaze. Beyond, groups of weeping women and stoic men stand cloistered in soot-stained finery, and Jean Valjean shrinks back into the shadows, not wanting to leave the horrific scene, but not wanting to be seen, either. The better part of his instincts tell him to flee, for the authorities will arrive soon, but before he can do anything, attention snares on two figures stumbling away from the fire. One, wearing the uniform of the brigade, collapses, and his comrades rush to drag him from the flames. The second figure refuses any such help, even tries to rush back into the burning building, but is restrained. Equal parts horrified and intrigued, Valjean strains to listen over the whip and crack of flame at the man’s agonized shouts, and what he hears makes his pulse still.

Children. The man’s children are trapped inside.

There is no time to war with a decision, to consider the risk, and Jean Valjean bolts from his hiding place, blood hammering in his ears and drowning out the surprised queries that rise up in response to this sudden stranger barreling toward the flame. This is to his advantage, the brigade at first too shocked to react, and by the time they’ve gathered their wits and sprung back into action, directing the water on the front eaves of where the main doors have been scorched to ash, he has already dashed into the fray, one arm slung over his mouth and nose to filter the smoke, his eyes watering and blinking furiously as he casts about, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

Currently, he finds himself stood in a small reception with a staircase leading up. To his left stretches a hallway so filled with smoke, he can barely see down it five feet. To his right, an archway opens into a grand room, less hazy as the errant ash and embers rise to its arched ceiling, but it won’t remain that way for long. The long draperies hung at the far windows are ablaze, furious orange licking down the walls and snapping at the varnished floor, promising to make quick work of the room. What remains of the pillars once lining the back wall have crashed and crumbled to unnavigable debris and yet, somehow Jean Valjean spies a small hand waving frantically amidst the rubble.

Without a moment's hesitation, he bolts into the room, vaulting over the remains of the pillar behind which he saw the hand, landing a bit gracelessly what for the knapsack on his back throwing him sideways with residual momentum. Catching himself, he turns to see two very young, very singed children staring at him in awe.

It does not last, and the eldest, a girl, immediately grabs him by the wrist, and points at her brother.

“He’s stuck!” She cries over the agonies of the building, and, to Jean Valjean’s horror, the boy is, his left leg pinned up to the knee.

Sacrificing precious seconds to assess the state of the room, Jean Valjean comes to the only conclusion he can, and scoops the girl up in his arms, dashing next for the exit.

“We have to go back! We have to go back for Somer!” She screams, thrashing in his arms, but Jean Valjean holds her tight, maneuvering the maze of blackened wood and charred marble.

They emerge from the building coughing and dazed, and the girl’s father is on them in an instant, taking her from Jean Valjean’s embrace and holding onto her for dear life.

“My son,” he says hoarsely, stroking his daughter’s hair with a shaking hand as she weeps against his shoulder.

“I am going to get him,” Jean Valjean replies, and before the man can say anything further, he turns and sprints back toward the building.

The fire is spreading viciously, the brigade’s efforts doing very little, and he must quite literally leap through flames now billowing around the main door’s frame. He does not even flinch as the flimsy material of his coat catches fire at the wrist, tamping it out with a sweaty palm and hurrying for the main room.

The curtains are gone now, turned either to ash or fallen half intact and smoldering on the floor, and the heat, searing as it wafts around the expansive room, buffets embers into his face.

Finally, Jean Valjean reaches the fallen pillar, the boy trapped beneath it half in hysterics.

“Your sister and father are safe,” Jean Valjean tells him as calmly as he can, meanwhile gauging the size and weight of the pillar.

“Please help me,” the boy sobs, clutching his leg.

Jean Valjean’s stomach lurches at the pitiful sight, but he maintains his composure.

The quickest solution is to roll the pillar off, but this will surely pulverize the boy’s leg if it is not already mangled, and he knows he will have to lift it.

 _Jean-le-Cric_. The name echoes with a ghostly memory of tight lipped guards and suffering prisoners, and he shakes his head, looks around for something to provide leverage.

There is nothing at hand.

Suddenly, the building groans, and a massive chunk of the ceiling plummets to the floor mere feet away from them, and, spurred to action, Jean Valjean throws his knapsack off his back and his coat along with it and wraps his arms as far around the pillar as he can.

“Stay still,” he commands the boy before bracing his back and pushing down with his legs.

The scream that issues tells him all he needs to know of the boy’s injuries, but he can barely lift the pillar a scant few inches. Just as his muscles beg for him to give up, a member of the brigade appears from nowhere, wraps his arms around from the other side and pulls upward, effectively helping hoist the pillar enough for the boy to shimmy out from underneath it.

The second he is free, Jean Valjean lets go and gathers the boy into his arms.

“We have to get out now!” The brigade member yells over the incensed roar of another section of ceiling crashing to the floor.

This need not be repeated, and the three of them make their escape.

“God bless you, monsieur!” The father cries as Jean Valjean delivers the boy to his arms. The girl clings to his trousers, face streaked with dirty tears, and she whimpers anew when she sees her brother.

But Jean Valjean’s attention is not on them. As soon as the boy is secure, he makes again for the building, only to be stopped by the man who came to his aid.

“What are you doing? The children are safe.”

“I have left my knapsack in there,” Jean Valjean explains.

“Whatever it contains, I am sure it can be replaced - _monsieur_!”

But Jean Valjean has already shrugged the man’s staying hand off his shoulder, running, one last time, into the blaze.

The resulting shouts go first unheeded and then unheard as the building swallows him. His knapsack and coat are exactly where he left him but, to his horror, the coat has caught fire, the right sleeve unsalvageable, and the pocket, too. Whether it is with dread or relief that he recalls this was where his papers were secreted proves an irrelevant concern as one of the nearby windows abruptly explodes, sending glass shards in outward projectiles and pulling the cold, December air in to fuel the flames into chaos.

Grabbing his knapsack, Jean Valjean abandons his coat with the ruined papers and the coin of Petit Gervais and runs, his charred breaths grating down his throat, his lungs raw from the smoke. In his panic to save the children, he failed to notice just how sweet the frigid air feels on his sweat slick and blistered skin, and he savors the sensation as he collapses to his knees well beyond the conflagration.

In an instant, dozens converge upon him, but his eyes are closed, and a darkness is coming fast to his swimming mind.

“Bring a stretcher!” Someone calls

“You are an angel, monsieur,” says someone else.

“God bless you,” says another.

Beyond these overly kind accusations, Jean Valjean hears distantly a low rumbling of thunder and thinks with a strange clarity, _So, it is not cold enough for snow. That is good._ For the water will douse the flames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could have made this longer, but i like the #symbolism of the last line, so am just gonna snip it off there for now. Gonna try to aim for weekly/bi-weekly updates, but we'll see how it goes given my impending essay schedule. Gen eds are a McBitch!


End file.
